Commentary Quotes

“The single best thing about coming out of the closet is that nobody can insult you by telling you what you've just told them.”
― Rachel Maddow

“And pictures of perfection, as you know, make me sick and wicked.”
― Jane Austen

“Do you see the consequences of the way we have chosen to think about success? Because we so profoundly personalize success, we miss opportunities to lift others onto the top rung...We are too much in awe of those who succeed and far too dismissive of those who fail. And most of all, we become much too passive. We overlook just how large a role we all play—and by “we” I mean society—in determining who makes it and who doesn’t.”
― Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers: The Story of Success

“A good newspaper, I suppose, is a nation talking to itself.”
― Arthur Miller

“Tore up from the floor up. Followed by a big outtie.

John Mathew”
― J.R. Ward, Lover Mine

“When I was a youngster, all the progressive people were saying, “Why all this prudery? Let us treat sex just as we treat all our other impulses.” I was simple-minded enough to believe they meant what they said. I have since discovered that they meant exactly the opposite. They meant that sex was to be treated as no other impulse in our nature has ever been treated by civilized people. All the others, we admit, have to be bridled. Absolute obedience to your instinct for self-preservation is what we call cowardice; to your acquisitive impulse, avarice. Even sleep must be resisted if you’re a sentry. But every unkindness and breach of faith seems to be condoned provided that the object aimed at is “four bare legs in a bed.”

It is like having a morality in which stealing fruit is considered wrong—unless you steal nectarines.

And if you protest against this view you are usually met with chatter about the legitimacy and beauty and sanctity of “sex” and accused of harboring some Puritan prejudice against it as something disreputable or shameful. I deny the charge. Foam-born Venus … golden Aphrodite … Our Lady of Cyprus… I never breathed a word against you. If I object to boys who steal my nectarines, must I be supposed to disapprove of nectarines in general? Or even of boys in general? It might, you know, be stealing that I disapproved of.”
― C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics

“The constant steaming in of thoughts of others must suppress and confine our own and indeed in the long run paralyze the power of thought… The inclination of most scholars is a kind of fuga vacui ( latin for vacuum suction )from the poverty of their own mind , which forcibly draws in the thoughts of others… It is dangerous to read about a subject before we have thought about it ourselves… When we read, another person thinks for us; merely repeat his mental process. So it comes about that if anybody spends almost the whole day in reading, he gradually loses the capacity for thinking. Experience of the world may be looked upon as a kind of text, to which reflection and knowledge form the commentary. Where there is a great deal of reflection and intellectual knowledge and very little experience , the result is like those books which have on each page two lines of text to forty lines of commentary”
― Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the World's Greatest Philosophers

“The club is too loud to talk, so after a couple of drinks, everyone feels like the centre of attention but completely cut off from participating with anyone else.
You're the corpse in an English murder mystery.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

“Two people, two hands, and two songs, in this case "Big Shot" and "Bette Davis Eyes." The lyrics of the two songs provided no commentary, honest or ironic, on the proceedings. They were merely there and always underfoot, the insistent gray muck that was pop culture. It stuck to our shoes and we tracked it through our lives.”
― Colson Whitehead, Sag Harbor

“Comments are free but facts are sacred.”
― C.P. Scott

“If a man tells you that he is fond of the Imitation, view him with sudden suspicion; he is either a dabbler or a Saint.”
― Ronald A. Knox

“Is it true, the world works hard and we play? Is that why we're hated so much?”
― Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

“She turned quickly to face him, and with one part of his mind he thought, They call it falling in love, admiring as always the wisdom of the language. Not stumbling in love, not walking, striding, jumping, bouncing, crawling in love. You fall in love, straight forward like a chopped tree, straight down like a rock from a cliff: gravity, earth, concussion.”
― Max Byrd, Jackson

“Yardy doing a good job out there—1-14 off his five overs so far—but Bangla are letting this drift. The bowling is there to attack, but they're as passive as sleeping sloths at the mo.”
― Tom Fordyce

“The Hebrew word, qeren (#H7161 קֶ֣רֶן), is a horn of a bull, or is sometimes used to describe the tusk of an elephant. The English translation here is, “might.” In either case, the business-end of either animal is the symbol of its strength.
pg 41”
― Michael Ben Zehabe, Lamentations: how narcissistic leaders torment church and family

“I watch people play golf in silence. Even after they hit I remain quiet, because my commentary won't help the ball roll into the hole, but it will saturate the air with unwanted pressure. Spoken words are like direct energy weapons, and I don't deploy them at an unarmed target.”
― Jarod Kintz, To be good at golf you must go full koala bear

“Young people today seem to be positively pickled in gin.”
― Dorothy L. Sayers, Hangman's Holiday: A Collection of Short Mysteries

“In Tibet, there were innumerable great scholars and bodhisattvas, but unless a scholar was told by his root guru to compose a commentary on a specific text or received a prediction from his yidam deity, he would not write one. Even when great scholars or bodhisattvas did write something, they would first check themselves to make sure that their intention was not merely to win respect, prove themselves to be a great scholar, gain material wealth, or acquire a good reputation. As every Dharma text is meant to benefit being and guide them on the spiritual path, they would only write if they had a pure, unselfish motivation.

Even in the context of the Sutrayana path, though the past great scholars and realized beings wrote many commentaries on the Buddha's teachings, these writings would first be examined by other great scholars to determine whether the text was in exact accord with the Buddha's teachings. If the text did agree with the Buddha's teachings, it would be presented to the Dharma king and discussed with him. If they all agreed that the text was qualified, the writer would be invited to discuss the text and answer questions from the Dharma king and the scholars. If it was perfect and qualified as a text that could benefit beings, the author would be recognized as a good scholar and the text would be respected. If the author claimed to be a scholar but wrote a commentary that the others found not to be in accordance with the Buddha's teachings and therefore not beneficial, they would proclaim that the text had no value. It would be tied to a dog's tail, and after the dog had run around with it for a while, the text would be thrown into a fire. This was because a commentary would be read by many people, and if it was not in accordance with the teachings of the Buddha, readers could develop wrong views, create negative karma, and fall into the lower realms in their next life.”
― Penor Rinpoche, An Ocean of Blessings: Heart Teachings of Drubwang Penor Rinpoche

“The Next Go-To Spot. The tender brisket, with a crust as perfect as praline candy, will make you want to brave the rush-hour traffic just to sample it. The sauces are smooth as silk and layered with infusions of spice. Rather than being an afterthought, the sides deserve a life of their own. Margot Salton is a sorceress, wielding her unique mastery over wood and smoke and fire.
“Wow,” Margot said. “That’s a damn love letter. Thanks, sugarman74.”
― Susan Wiggs, Sugar and Salt

“In my experience,...the humans who talk most loudly about freedom are the ones who think it’s so good that nobody else should have any of it.”
― Karen Traviss, Halo: Mortal Dictata

“Yes, everything begins in the human heart. But the human heart is not vacuum-packed. The pulsebeat from any breast, however armored, is felt, not just in private contract-"doomed commitments"- between private persons, but in Selma, in Haight-Ashbury, in Vietnam, in South Africa, in East New York. Reports from those locations are also reports from the heart.”
― Barbara Grizzuti Harrison, Off Center: Essay

“Your great spirits are mere Jack-a-lanterns in the brain, they dance about, shine and make vagaries—while those who possess happiness, soberly and quietly enjoy their treasure.”
― Hannah Cowley, The Runaway

“Coming to the Bible through commentaries is much like looking at a landscape through garret windows, over which generations of unmolested spiders have spun their webs.”
― Henry Ward Beecher, Life Thoughts, Gathered from the Extemporaeous Discourses

“I sighed and tried to return back to my schoolwork, but being bored of what I was learning, I gave time away to articles about Hypatia, precocity, young philosophers, and, during arbitrary, episodic moments, the [rubik's] cube. I was procrastinating, yet I still wanted to be diligent and academically edified.”
― Lucy Carter, For the Intellect

“Yes, questions continue, since the notions I used only represented the what’s instead of the how’s, the why’s, the when’s, etc. Like what happened in the lectures, the facts were enforced, but nothing was done to dive deeper into them.

Finally, I was eventually able to solve one side of the rubik’s cube, now realizing that I had inadvertently taught myself the same way I had been lectured. I realized how even the Rubik’s cube can generate rudimentary and superficial knowledge in a user.”
― Lucy Carter, For the Intellect

“Why speak with assumption,
Why speak with theories,
When we could analyze
the actual person?

Prejudice is not only be immoral, but also illogical”
― Lucy Carter, For the Intellect

“Wait,” one of the apes objected, “we have never driven a car! What if we destroy everything? The humans might use our lack of experience to add stronger restrictions to apes, and we might look incapable.”

“Well,” another member insisted, “that would be absurd. It’s not our fault that we are inexperienced! The humans were the ones who did not give us access to the experience we need! It’s in their nature: discrimination. I mean, they even restricted each other from having education, voting, and career rights!”
― Lucy Carter, For the Intellect

“I am the prodigal son every time i search for unconditional love where it cannot be found. Why do I keep ignoring the place of true love and persist in looking for it elsewhere? Why do I keep leaving home where I am called the child of God, the beloved of my Father?”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming

“No society wants you to be wise. It’s a painstaking fact. As the winds gather momentum and their energy is felt on the bellies of the wise, the fools are led to the epicenter of death. The world has changed so many books were hidden from a black man, under the skies of colonialism the majority forced from knowledge and we built a culture of straight education which is not education but instilling slogans of slavery. Lone reading, lone understanding, lone accumulation is what we fought for, just a social forgery we are still under post colonialism barbarism”
― Tapiwanaishe Pamacheche, Depth of colour

“When they had measured the attic they had to get a pencil and do a sum. They both got different answers to it at first, and even when they agreed I am not sure they got it right.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Magician’s Nephew